Rock and roll circus comes to Coulonge

On Tuesday (July 7), the Centre des Loisirs des Draveurs was packed for a display of the performing arts put on by Canada’s Circus Spectacular, who held two shows in the afternoon. On top of the more typical performances from clowns, jugglers and acrobats, the shows also featured dirt bikes riding inside a globe, and [...] The post Rock and roll circus comes to Coulonge appeared first on The Equity .

On Tuesday (July 7), the Centre des Loisirs des Draveurs was packed for a display of the performing arts put on by Canada’s Circus Spectacular, who held two shows in the afternoon. On top of the more typical performances from clowns, jugglers and acrobats, the shows also featured dirt bikes riding inside a globe, and a live rock-and-roll singer to keep the crowd’s energy high. The circus’s co-owner, Phillip ‘Dusty’ Sadler, a circus performer with more than 30 years experience as a clown, said that their troupe of around 20 people has some Canadians, along with performers from South America and the UK.

“This year’s theme is called circus rocks, and we’re combining circus talent with rock and roll flair,” he said. “It just adds a little bit of excitement.” Christine Bourque, the arena committee’s vice-president, said that the event was a fundraiser for the facility.

“Our goal was to try and make this a four-season complex, so we’ve been scratching our head to figure out what we can do to get to that end,” she explained. “We brought in pickleball over the last two weeks. A few people suggested a circus and that seemed like a pipe dream a couple years ago, but it’s come to fruition so we’re pretty excited about it.”

Bourque said that the committee recently received an $88,000 grant from the MRC to renovate their washrooms and make them accessible to people with mobility issues. “We’ve done hundreds of thousands in repairs over the last couple of years, but our newest project, and we just got a nice grant from the MRC, is that our main floor washrooms are original,” she said. “I mean they look like you’re walking into an outhouse at a cottage and they’re not accessible, which is the biggest issue with them.”

Bourque said that looking forward, they would like to add air conditioning of some kind to be able to get more use out of the arena’s upstairs hall. “I think for me, what I’d like to see, we have a really nice hall upstairs, and it’s great in the winter but in the summer it’s just too hot, we can’t really use it,” she said. “We’re actively looking for grants to look at heat pumps or air conditioning upstairs so we could have other events up there through the summer, so it could truly be a four-seasons venue.”

Sadler said that the company, based in Florida, has been on a ten-week tour across Canada, performing every night along the way. “We started in Newfoundland and have worked our way over this way,” he said. “Two weeks left.

We’re going to finish in the province of Quebec.” When asked if he had any advice for Pontiac folks looking to join the circus, he was quick with a response: “Finish high school and then come talk to me after,” he laughed. “It’s something that has to be in your heart, it has to be a passion,” he added.

“I would suggest going and seeing as many shows as you can, whether it’s circus [ . . . ] magic shows, see their style, see how they work.

If you’ve got the passion, you’ll end up in the circus.” Rocker Io Palej (left) from Glasgow, Scotland provided the classic rock tunes for the performance, alongside Chilean clown Richard Salas (right). Izzy Salas managed to keep an absurd amount of hula hoops turning during her solo performance.

Juggler Maxie Astudillo wowed the crowd with his ability to keep numerous rings in motion. Demond Moselly (top) and Mark Johnson (bottom) put on a gymnastic duo routine as one of the final acts of the performance. The post Rock and roll circus comes to Coulonge appeared first on The Equity .